Why can I not have circular exec_depend?

I ran into a problem because of a circular exec_depend. Using catkin-tools, I get the following error:

[build] Error: The workspace packages have a circular dependency, and cannot be built. Please run catkin list --deps to determine the problematic package(s).

I completely understand why I cannot have circular build dependencies but, according to my understanding, an exec dependency means that the package needs the dependency only at run-time, so it should be possible to build it independently. So there should be no need to even look at the exec_depends at build time.

Is there something wrong in my understanding of exec_depend or is this a bug?

Asked by Felix Widmaier on 2018-09-20 04:49:09 UTC

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Answers

This sounds like a bug. Can you make a minimum working example of this to verify that this is indeed an issue?

If so I would submit the issue to catkin_tools

Asked by Link on 2018-09-20 10:10:16 UTC

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Thanks, I created an issue with minimal example: https://github.com/catkin/catkin_tools/issues/523

While doing this, I noticed that circular exec_depend is okay for catkin_make (so only catkin build fails) but when one of the dependencies is build_depend both fail.

Asked by Felix Widmaier on 2018-09-21 01:57:52 UTC